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A Statement from
Dr. John Haggie
September 30, 2002
Despite our best efforts, government has
failed to respond in a meaningful way to the needs and concerns of this
province's doctors. As of midnight tonight physicians will withdraw their services:
- Private
offices will close.
- All
non-emergency hospital clinics have been cancelled.
- All
elective procedures have been cancelled.
- Any
physician working "on call" will refrain from seeing routine
patients.
- Physicians
will not accept new patients, other than those qualifying for
emergency services.
There will be no disruption to the following
"protected services":
- All
emergency departments will be staffed at the same levels as before the
job action.
- All
obstetrical patients will be followed without disruption.
- All
patients in hospital will continue to be medically covered as before.
- There
will be no disruption in medical care for patients who are on a course
of treatment if there is any risk that this may cause harm. This may
include cancer, psychiatric, palliative patients, etc.
These are drastic measures that have been
forced upon us by government's inability to enter into meaningful
negotiations. The NLMA proposed a new way of doing business with
government. This would have had the effect of ensuring a stable physician
population, recruiting new physicians to the province and managing a whole
host of important issues such as primary health care reform and the
delivery of specialty services.
Government's reaction showed them to be far
more interested in their short-term balance sheet than the future stability
of the health care system.
This set of negotiations is simply the most
important we have ever undertaken, not just for ourselves but for the
people of this province.
Chronic under funding, long wait times and a
shortage of health care professionals has challenged our ability to
maintain quality and timely care. Patients in Newfoundland and Labrador have every right to have the same standards of care as
elsewhere in Canada.
Patients are already receiving sub-optimal
care because there are not enough doctors. The situation we face today will
only get worse in the coming years as more doctors leave and retire.
Doctors in this province are tired. We are
tired of spending hours on the phone looking for specialists. We are tired
of having to order and re-order diagnostic tests because we don't have the
right doctors to interpret the results. We are tired of explaining to
patients and their relatives why they can't get a timely appointment when
they need one. But most of all we are exhausted by the effort it takes to
get government to listen and act.
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